In Man vs. Gorilla, suppose your hypothetical man could have any skills - the foremost expert in the world and trained since birth. He is also an expert in gorilla anatomy. What skills would you give him, and how would he go about defeating this gorilla in hand to hand combat given his knowledge? Or do you say it’s impossible?
I am particularly interested in martial arts that are supposed to work irrespective of size and strength. While I was studying Ki-Aikido, for example, an expert once came in, and I was absolutely amazed at how effortlessly this small old man could throw even the largest men present. But you can of course pick any martial art of your liking (with no weapons).
ummm, having trained myself for a number of years the only thing I can think of that might remotely result in survival:
Simultaneous deep thumb strike to the eyes, really deep (focus on the back of his brain case) afterwhich:
Run like hell
On that note, once upon a time a doberman came after me
No place or time to run
Spear hand right down the throat
Got nicked up a bit but came away in far better shape than if I’d run or froze
He was a she actually. Not much damage (just a bruised throat) but enough initial pain and surprise that she backed off to hack and cough long enough that the owner came out and leash her. She didn’t look like she was ready for another go anyway as I had the upper hand, so to speak, and was advancing in order to keep it.
I can’t imagine any combination of skills that you could acquire to defeat a gorilla in hand to hand combat. I vote for impossible.
I once thought a Doberman would be relatively easier to defend against until I owned a couple. Playing around is one thing but a Doberman with serious malice in its’ heart (or fear) is another. Reading about foot pounds of force takes on a whole new meaning. Much faster and much stronger than I thought. A gorilla - probably with experience exerting his dominance over others and bigger - would be much worse.
My martial arts experience is limited to full contact tae kwon do but most of it works better if you can keep your adversary off of you. The gorilla, he’ll grab you and that nifty turn around back kick you see Walker do all the time just will not work. Of course, if you consider ritual suicide an extension of some martial arts then I do see some application here …
Well, if you can get the gorilla to run away from you across a huge grassy valley, you could probably chase it until it collapsed and died of exhaustion. That’s the only physiological upper hand you have as a human being – if something is running away from you, you don’t have to keep up, just not lose track.
Moses and Aaron on a stick, have you never seen a gorilla close up? They are muscled like a horse. They’d rip a human apart like a chicken.
Chimps bite off the face and genetalia to incapacitate victims, be they other chimps or humans. I’ll up what the man said, the best martial art against an ape is a 12 gauge.
